the sun also rises /paxton

p a x t o n .

"You won't come back again
Even if the world should end
Still I would never let
Anybody else come in"

Three days later he's sitting in the gang's usual haunt, a can of cheap beer in his hand and a shit-eating grin on his face. There's a bruise on his cheek from earlier in the day when he had a run in with some serpents, but other than that Pax seems like he's doing okay. He's quit smoking, just for a moment, just to catch up. There's still a pack in his pocket and maybe they'll get lit later, one by one as he sits on the top step to his apartment, waiting.

He plays with the tab on his beer can, laughs at something Erica says as if it's actually funny and he isn't just doing it to fill the silent moment. He should go home, he knows that, but he just bends the tab off of his beer can so hard that it snaps off.

Yesterday he got home and all of Amos' drawers in the dresser were empty and for a quiet, crazed moment, Paxton wondered if the other boy had ever actually been there at all.

It'd make sense if he's gone off the deep end, right? A gang's no place to raise a kid, and Paxton still remembers the first time he realized how easy it is to lose someone, too young. He was too young then, he's too young now, unable even to understand the feelings flowing through him, smoke in his lungs, in and out, in and out, he's choking on them.

But then he found Amos' sweater at the bottom of the washer and just in case, he hid it under the couch.

And he looks at Erica, looks at the way her lips curve up into a smile at his laughter and the way she reaches her hand across the table to take his, like they mean something together and he thinks about that sweater. He laughs again because it's easy and it makes her smile and then he can smile back.

But what did she even say?

She pulls her hand back so she can light a cigarette and Paxton forgets to tell her that he's not smoking right now because they can both smell the old smoke clinging to his shirt anyway. Other members are starting to filter in, there's Stocks, Cecelia, Brakes.

"Where's Amos been at, doll?" Erica asks him and then she blows a perfect stream of smoke over his head.

It's a good question, one he's still been trying to figure out how to answer. Paxton can be a good liar when he tries to be one, but he's never lied to his family before. "Taking curfew too seriously," he says after a moment and holds his hand out for her cigarette, "He's been holed up reading."

She stares at him for a long moment, a sad sort of look in her eyes as if she can see right through him, see the pain in there, circulating through him over and over again. Recycled air.

"You know you ain't been the same lately?" she asks but it's rhetorical, a veiled warning. Paxton pretends he doesn't hear it. Yeah he's been a little bit less careful, but

"Isn't that a good thing? All for the gang, yeah?" he says and passes her the cigarette back.

He's known Erica since they were little. She's a couple years older but she never babied him, none of them ever did. They all knew who his parents were and mostly, they just expected the same out of Paxton. There was never a question as to whether or not he'd be fit for gang life, he'd never known anything else.

And he is suited.

Paxton would do anything for the gang, he has done anything. One night even crawled him with a face beaten so badly that he was barely recognizable and then stitched himself up in the dark out of shame. He can't bare being a loose end but that's what he's become without Amos. Before this, no matter what, everywhere he went Amos went too. Now he finds himself in back alleys, pressed against the wall with no help because he has to lie and say that Amos is with him.

His life span shortens every second he runs the streets without him but Pax can't bear to put him in danger by admitting that he left.

It's easier to die than do that.

Two hours later he's playing Stocks for his wristwatch in a game of poker, poor asshole has no money left and Pax should have called it half an hour ago but it's easy to wipe the floor with Stocks. He also can't help holding onto some resentment for setting everything into motion a few weeks back by leaving Amos in danger. Besides, he needs a new watch, smashed his last one.

"Three of a kind," he drawls out proudly, that fifth beer making his vowels longer than they need to be. Stocks' brow furrows and he drops a two-pair on the table in defeat. He starts tugging at the strap of his watch before Pax waves a hand dismissively, "Nah man, I know your dad gave you that, just wanted to watch you squirm," he says, that same grin pasted on his face.

He can be benevolent when he chooses to be.

The game's over though, Pax stands up to leave the table when the door to the hideout opens and Tank enters, a grim look on his face. There's blood on his shirt, enough blood to make the rest of the bar go silent for a split-second. That's never a good sign because when Tank has to kill someone it's because they've pissed him off and when Tank is pissed off, Cecilia is even angrier.

Paxton's usually the one who has to deal with the both of them when they're angry, since he was a kid, it's always been him at Tank's side being the one constant in ten years of quick member turnovers. So he grabs a couple beers off the counter and makes his way over to where Tank has sat down beside Cecilia and puts them both in front of him. "Thought you were doing a routine border run today," he says and slips into a chair across from Tank, "Run into some trouble?"

Tank wraps one large hand around a can and slides the second beer across the table to Paxton. They've done it that way since Pax was too young to drink and Tank had to father him after his dad died. Tank would have only been about twenty then himself.

"Saw something that turned my stomach," Tank says slowly, studying Paxton like he doesn't recognize him, "Looks like you got in some trouble too."

Pax touches the bruise on his cheek lightly, he'd kind of forgotten it was there. "It's nothing," he says.

They sit in silence for a long moment and the bar around them slowly comes back to life. Chatter fills the blank silences like the tide and Pax loosens up a little, the feeling of danger mostly passed.

"You remember the night your father died?"

Pax nods. It'd been a punctured lung. Paxton had been waiting in the warehouse like always so that when his dad got back, they could go home together. Then twenty minutes had turned into two hours and then that had turned into his dad crawling in through the side door, everyone else dead and him slowly drowning in his own blood.

Tank had scooped him up and locked him in his dad's office and Paxton had banged on the door until they let him out to see his dad.

But his dad was already gone.

"My heart ached for you kid, all of us did. I remember thinking that night that I'd do anything to protect you, ya know?" Tank says and then he lifts his can to his mouth and drinks until there's nothing left.

Pax watches, the smooth feeling of being drunk slowly leaving him as the bar starts to quiet again, the tension in the room almost palpable.

"Yeah Tank," he says, tone careful, "You know I'd do anything for you too? You're like an older broth-"

"Don't fuckin lie to me, kid, I saw him, I saw Amos, Henry did too."

Pax pauses, his fingers slowly curling into fists on his knees as he tries to make himself still. He doesn't know yet what Tank is thinking but he can make a few guesses. He knows what it looks like, what Amos leaving has done, he just doesn't know if it's Amos they want for it or him.

"You send Amos out to the Triplets' Territory and think we won't fucking notice?"

Him then.

Pax smiles a little at that. Like always, Amos is in trouble and it's Paxton who needs to get him out of it, smooth things over. The feeling is so familiar that it almost hurts, this is one of the last times he's ever going to need to do this for him.

"It's not what you think, Tank," Pax says, "It's more complicated than that."

"You've got five seconds to explain."

Cecilia is standing up now, eyes on Paxton and her hands on Tank's shoulders, watching Paxton through dead, cold eyes. Has she ever liked Pax? It's hard to think now.

"I can't."

He can't tell them that the only reason all this happened is because he kissed Amos. The shame in that moment has been reinforced hundreds of times since by Amos' silence on it and then his leaving and then the empty drawers. He doesn't need Amos to say it or Tank because he's already heard the words in his head over and over like bile in his head since then.

Fucking Queer.

Not normal.

"Get out, Paxton."

Tank's hands are in fists on the table and there's a a grim line on his face where his mouth should be and his eyes look cold.

Paxton doesn't move, thoughts racing a hundred miles a minute away from here as his world starts to crumble further around him.

"You gonna hurt him?" he asks.

"That's not your concern anymore."

Paxton stands then, feet taking him closer to Tank. The bar is dead silent now but for the two of them but Paxton doesn't care if the whole world sees his fall from grace, none of that matters anymore. That hollow feeling is back, the demon tightens its grip on his collarbones and Paxton smiles wider as the emptiness spreads through him. Loss only fuels him.

"If you hurt him, I'll fucking kill you Tank," he promises, tone deadly calm as if he isn't aware that he's signing his death warrant with every word, as if it doesn't feel kind of good. "You know how I can get."

The crowd moves in a little instinctually even as Tank stands, all three hundred pounds of muscle and man looming over Paxton like he couldn't crush him with one hand. "Don't make me fucking do this Paxton," he says quietly, like he still has a choice.

"You going soft, Tank?" he asks.

Years of care lie in-between them and Pax softens a little. He's not being fair, he knows the rules and Amos broke them all and by extension, Paxton. He knows how bad it looks.

Tank puts a hand on Paxton's shoulder, this sad look on his face, like a wounded god and he squeezes gently. Maybe this is the goodbye he never got from his dad.

"You were going to do such great things, kid," he says.

And then Paxton feels this sharp pain in his side, just under his ribcage, as if someone's pushed their nail into his skin and just kept on pushing. He opens his mouth briefly, a slightly confused look on his face as Tank lets go of him.

Pax stumbles back a little bit, his legs gone weak and he looks down at the spot, at the red seeping into his white shirt, expanding slowly as his blood runs out of him. He puts a hand on the spot and hisses in pain before pulling his hand away.

There are hands on his shoulders, pushing him towards the door and Tank isn't looking at him, he's wiping his knife on a napkin and finishing off Paxton's beer. Cecilia is sitting again, gaze trained away and as the hands push him out, he catches the look on Erica's face, that sad one again.

Then his knees are hitting the dirty floor of the alley and the door is slamming shut behind him and Paxton's blood is dripping onto uneven cobbles and pooling in-between all the little cracks.